AN AFRICAN SISTER ENCOURAGED ME

One of my dear African sisters greatly encouraged me recently. I had a rather difficult and unpleasant time this summer due to problems with a staff member whose every conversation centered on what more he could get. I am not accustomed to servants of God talking or thinking in these terms, and it wore me out both physically and emotionally. When I came home I had a harder than average time readjusting.

Then came an email from Resty, a dear Ugandan sister and one of our faithful workers there. While we were together this summer, we had prayed and brainstormed many times seeking a good solution for a young boy who kept running away from home. Numerous trips were made to the police on his behalf. He had been rejected by his parents, experienced problems wetting himself, had gone to the streets and had become so smelly that taxi drivers and even bodabodas (open motorcycles used like taxis) refused him a ride. Medical tests showed no physical problem. The doctors said he just needed love. Resty has run around and expended so much effort trying to find a place that would take (I'll call him Marvelous). All to no avail. Although we had said we would not start another children's home, Marvelous's case made me think about it again. Yet I knew that even if we did start a home, getting it up and running is a long, expensive, and difficult process. There's no way we could do it in time to help Marvelous. And at other places he was too young, too old, not yet in serious delinquency, not this, not that. It seemed hopeless and we were out of ideas. We tried to show Marvelous all the love we could in our programs, but he needed a home.

Then Resty's email came. In sharing his story for prayer, a family stepped forward to help--a family who has helped other children who were suffering the devastating effects of rejection. They were taking in Marvelous, with the approval of the police and all the other authorities that be. I could only praise God. I was so thankful for this breakthrough.

I realize too how much effort Resty has expended on this child. She truly has shown her love and concern for even the smelliest of these. Truly we made the right decision when we recently promoted her to the position of "Child and Family Advocate." Thank you, Resty, for your faithfulness, your caring heart. Thank you for encouraging me today.

New Missionaries for Uganda--Yea God!

It takes a big team to do a big job, they say. That's why I was so thrilled with the decision of our Board Friday evening to accept Mark and Stacy Luckey and family as missionaries to Uganda. Yea, God! They will be working alongside Russ and Marcia Baugh who are there now getting started with a project called "The Way Home". It's an effort to help orphans find "forever families", preferably through in-country adoption. Encouraging foster parenting and helping grandmothers who are raising orphans will also be a part of their job. The Baughs and the Luckeys hope to help raise awareness in African churches regarding the responsibility of the church toward orphans, hope to arouse in African Christians a desire to help orphans, hope to help guide those efforts.

Uganda's orphans come from the ravages of AIDS and from the devastation left behind by LRA's long guerilla war in the north. Like us, both the Baughs and the Luckey's have adopted African orphans into their own homes, and now God has laid on their hearts the wider need of millions. Thank you, God, for adding missionaries to the team. Send us more long term, career or lifetime missions oriented people, we pray in Jesus' name. And take care of the orphans today, You who called Yourself Father of the Fatherless. In Jesus' name. Amen.